


To Have A Home

by chirithy (sylleblossum)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylleblossum/pseuds/chirithy
Summary: Prompto grew up in the Niflheim Training Facility for the first 7 years of his life, but he was spirited away with an unknown woman that was just trying to get them to Insomnia. The woman doesn't make the journey, but Prompto meets people on his way and they quickly adopt him as one of their own.This is the story of Prompto and his not-so lonely life.





	To Have A Home

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, this is my first Final Fantasy fic and I hope I do the characters justice. Prompto is my all-time favorite and the sunshine incarnate just needs love and family in his life, so that's why I wrote this story. Also, I like Pelna from the Kingsglaive movie and wanted to see more of him.
> 
> The character of Oma is an original character. Her full name is Paloma Khara, she's in her late 60's-early 70's, and she is Pelna's grandmother, and the one mainly taking care of Pelna and Prompto. The reason she is called Oma is because it was the nickname that she preferred over grandma (does anyone else have a grandmother that does this? Mine does)
> 
> The hair braiding tradition I've included in this fic was slightly inspired by an old fandom that I loved which is The Hobbit. The fandom made this very in-detail hair braiding tradition in almost all of the fics I've read, so I've just added a simplified version of it here.
> 
> Because the recent Osaka FFXV event has blown my age headcanons for the Glaives out of the water, I will be using the ones I originally thought they were so I guess there's more canon divergence than I thought there would be.
> 
> Age difference between Prompto and the Glaives:  
> Crowe: 2 years older  
> Pelna: 3 years older  
> Nyx and Libertus: 5 years older
> 
> There isn't much information on Galahd, so I'm taking it as a small country/territory that has many different villages. And since we don't know where Pelna is from (kinda, I think it's hinted that he's from Galahd), I have him as from a different village while Crowe/Nyx/Libertus are all from the same one.
> 
> Also, I have trouble with words, so if you see me using a word or term wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me.
> 
> That's all, and I hope you enjoy my first chapter of To Have A Home.

For the first 7 years of his life, Prompto never felt love. The Niflheim training facility he was born and raised in was cold, in temperature and emotion. He really only felt fear and obedience. He didn’t even have a name in the beginning, only a barcode. The fear he felt was constant; he wasn’t the best cadet, only his marksmanship and speed were his saving graces. He had heard several higher-ups talk about him and about decommissioning him. No one, but the science unit, knew what happened to a decommissioned soldier. It scared him to the core and he let that fear consume him. He had found himself written up for decommission sooner than he had hoped.

His last day had happened so fast, he barely processed it. One moment, he was being led to the science unit, trying not to flinch away from the scientists’ smiling faces, and then the next moment, he was running. Someone was holding his wrist, guiding him. He looked up at the person. She was female-presenting, dressed in dark gray clothes. She turned and looked down at him. He recognized her as one of the scientists, but he didn’t understand what was going on. They had run for several more hours until they reached a mountain pass. The woman led him into a cave. She didn’t give him time to look around before she ushered him into a hidden vehicle. It wasn’t until the woman started the vehicle that he had started to feel warmth. Warm air came out of the vent in front of him; it had fascinated him and he put his hands to the vent.

The woman was talking on a phone, telling someone that she had made her escape and that she had brought someone with her. The person on the other end didn’t seem happy about that, but the woman said that she couldn’t leave him behind. He had started to tear up at that, and turned his head away from her, watching the scenery go by. When the woman finished her phone call, she started talking to him. It wasn’t much at first, mostly about where she was going, someplace called Lucis.

“I can’t be a part of the Empire anymore. Not with what they were doing to you kids…to you,” She had said. He didn’t really understand; he was only training to be a soldier all of his life, like the other cadets. He asked if that was bad. So she told him what was really going to happen to him in the science unit. Decommissioning wasn’t really what happened to faulty recruits. He would have been experimented on for the rest of his life, which would have been short anyhow. No one lasted long during decommission in the science unit. But, he didn’t understand why she chose to save him and had expressed that. The woman had only looked at him with an emotion on her face he didn’t understand. He saw that she had put a hand to her stomach, looking at him sadly for a moment, but she refocused on driving.

“It had to be you, no matter what,” He still didn’t understand, but he accepted the answer.

They traveled for days, only stopping for the woman to get some rest. He had finally taken a liking to her, even though he didn’t know her name. Though she had given him one. It took him a while to respond to Prompto, but he still loved the name nonetheless. Once when they had stopped for supplies, someone had asked the woman who he was. The woman had only smiled and patted Prompto’s head with a response of ‘my son Prompto’. The warmth he felt around the woman was overwhelming and he could barely understand it, so he asked her about it.

“It’s love, Prompto,” He didn’t understand that feeling, so she had explained it to him one night.

“Love is when you care so much about someone that you want to keep them safe and warm. The warmth you feel from me is my love for you,” That was all she had told him, and Prompto began to understand. She showed her love for him in different ways; tucking a blanket around him on cold night, waking him gently when he had dreams of the facility, smiles and gentle tones of voice. He found that he loved feeling loved. At one point, she had grabbed his arm that held his barcode. He and her both hated the sight of it, so she had gotten him a woven bracelet during one of the supply stops. She wrapped it gently around his wrist and made him promise that he’d let no one see it.

It wasn’t until they reached Lucis that their troubles started up. First, it was their car. It wouldn’t start anymore and they were forced to abandon it and carry on on foot. Next, they were starting to run low on supplies and very low on gil. But they still ventured on. It was when they reached a large forested area and night broke that the worse of the troubles came forth. Daemons. The woman was only able to defend them for so long before she got hurt. She pretended that it was nothing and continued on for a few days, until she started to get sick. Prompto had guided them to a nearby cave for shelter. She had started to become delirious, calling for her baby when Prompto took a step away from her, and then holding onto him tightly when he came back into view. She had one lucid moment one night, as Prompto kept watch, listening to the daemons rustle through the trees. She held his hand and spoke with tears streaming down her face.

“When daylight come, you must go on without me. Find people and stay with them. I’m so sorry,” Prompto didn’t want to leave her, but she made him promise. She kept whispering that she was sorry until she fell asleep. When dawn broke, Prompto looked over the woman once more before he left. The wound she had gotten from the daemons had turned green and black and the color was spreading through her body. She looked like she was barely breathing, and had barely responded when he had moved her hair away from her face. He told her sleeping form that he was also sorry and that he loved her and would never forget her. It was with a heavy heart that Prompto did what he promised and left her behind. With every couple steps, he would look back at the cave until he got far enough away for it to disappear from view. He didn’t realize he was crying until it was too late to stop.

He walked for several hours, pushing away his tears, until he was happened upon by a group of people of dark tanned skin and black hair. An elderly woman had made her group stop walking when she saw Prompto crying on the side of the road. She had come close to him, kneeling down to look at him in the eye, and helped him calm down and stop his tears. She spoke in a whisper and made him call her Oma. Prompto didn’t see the shock on the people’s face that were around them, staring at the elderly woman speak more. She got Prompto to tell them what had happened to him. He didn’t tell them about his part or of his true origins, only told them about how he and his mother had been attacked by daemons and she didn’t make it. The group had quickly accepted him after hearing his tale. Oma had held his hand as the group continued on, and she told him what happened to them. Their village and country had been attacked by Niflheim and they were headed for the Crown City of Insomnia to seek refuge.

As they traveled, Oma had told him all about her country of Galahd, told him about her village and their customs. Prompto had found the braid custom the most interesting, and loved to look at all the braid in Oma’s hair. Different braids and beads held several different meanings. One night, Oma had found him by the fire and brushed his shaggy blond hair. It was then she gave him a braid, and once she was done, she told him it was a family braid. She considered him family. Prompto had cried and hugged her tightly. He rarely left her side after that.

But, things became different once they reached Insomnia. Apparently, Oma’s village and country wasn’t the only one to have been attacked. There were thousands of other people also seeking refuge and were being assigned to different sections of the city. Oma and her family were sent to the Galahd section and they tried to testify that Prompto was with them. But Prompto had looked too different from them, with his freckled pale skin and blond hair to their dark tanned skin and black hair. He was sent to an orphanage instead, though he received permission to visit his Oma whenever he could.

The orphanage reminded him too much of the training facility and it terrified him. He cried himself to sleep for many night wishing he was back with the woman or Oma. The children were almost as cruel as the cadets, always finding something to tease Prompto about. He hated it, but he was glad for the chances he got to see Oma and her family.

He had lived in Insomnia for a year before he found himself adopted by the Argentums. They were lovely people, but after a couple months of adopting him, he barely saw them. He understood that they were busy with their jobs and he knew that they loved him, but he never felt the same warmth from them that he felt from the woman and Oma. With the Argentums gone most of the time, he was able to visit his Oma more. She made sure he was always fed and that his braid was tightly secured. He grew a bit chubby from the food he was given and it made the children at school tease him more. But Prompto didn’t really care. Yes, the words hurt him. But the food he was given was full of flavor and spice, and it reminded him that he was truly free from the Empire with their cold facility, bland food and horrid abuse.

It was on his tenth birthday that he was given his first camera. Oma and her family saved up enough to buy it for him. When it was given to him, he only had one question: why? And so Oma answered.

“We find you staring, wishing you could make a moment stop for a long time. You have memories and sights that you wish to preserve and we believe this can help,” He had hugged Oma tightly that night and almost fell asleep when she was rebraiding his hair. A small snapping noise had jolted him awake and his braid was brought in front of his eyes, and on the end of it was a bead that was almost identical to the one in Oma’s hair.

“It shows that no matter what, you are part of my family,” Oma had said with a smile. After Prompto was done crying and clinging to Oma, Oma’s grandson approached him. Pelna held Prompto’s new camera, and handed Prompto a photo that he had taken. It was of Oma braiding Prompto’s hair. Prompto smiled up at Pelna before hugging him as well. The older boy was only a few years older than him, and loved to treat Prompto as a younger brother.

After his birthday, however, thing changed at school. The children became worse towards him, mocking his appearance, and his refugee status. It made him feel worse about himself, and he began to hate how he looked. The only thing he didn’t hate was the braid in his hair, it was the only thing that made him feel like he belonged somewhere. Once, one of the bullies tried to cut the braid from his hair, and Prompto ran for the first time since entering Insomnia. Because of his new weight, he found his speed had been reduced, though he did managed to get away. Prompto found that he wanted to change, but he didn’t have the right push quite yet. It wasn’t until the Crown Prince, a tiny white dog and a letter appeared in his life that he found the push.

XXXX

It took him several years and much encouragement from Oma, Pelna and the rest of their family to reach a weight he was happy with. He had a slighter figure now, though he still had the stretch marks to prove how far he had come. Pelna had helped more throughout the years, running with to help train him. Pelna was going to apply to be a part of the Kingsglaive so he wanted to raise his own endurance and speed. Prompto was grateful nonetheless.

Prompto had finally gotten the courage to talk to Noctis and become friends with him. Noctis had accepted all of him, never commenting on the beaded braid in his hair, nor the tattered woven bracelet on his wrist. The two that took care of Noctis thought differently about Prompto and it was obvious. Ignis had known of his refugee status, though apparently the files said he was from Galahd (something Prompto was happy about) and of his adoptive parents. Ignis had first believed that Prompto was going to use Noctis for social status and money, but once he actually got to know the younger male, he found that Prompto truly only wanted to be Noctis’s friend. Gladiolus, on the other hand, tried to intimidate Prompto right off the bat, but Prompt didn’t let that get to him. To him, the Niflheim training facility was more terrifying than Gladio, and not long after Ignis accepted him, Gladio came around too, and Prompto found himself a new running companion. He was appreciative of that since Pelna had been accepted into the Glaives and was gone most days and night, and always came back exhausted.

His photography had gotten better as well, and Prompto found himself taking pictures of anything that could tell a story. The refugee sections usually were the main setting: little old women weaving a blanket, children playing ball in the street, vendors trying to sell their wares, people talking and smiling with a calming aura around them, flowers blooming despite being covered in shadows. Oma loved all of his photos, and often asked for Prompto to bring her some.

It was one night when he was 16 and delivering photos to his Oma that he had an interesting meet-up with Pelna. Prompto blamed it on himself, he wasn’t watching where he was walking and walked right into someone. He was so happy when he realized that it was just his brother instead of someone else.

“Well there’s my little chocobrother,” Pelna said, as he wrapped an arm around Prompto’s shoulders and began to ruffle his hair. Prompto tried to swat the hand away, but to no avail.

“Pel! You dork, let go,” Prompto whined and cause Pelna to laugh at him, but he did let go. It had been weeks since he had seen his little brother, and Pelna gave him an once-over, grinning when he saw Prompto sticking his tongue out at him.

“Headed to Oma’s?” Pelna asked. Prompto answered with a nod. He dug into his school bag and pulled out a thick envelope.

“She wanted more photos. And well, you know me, can’t say no to Oma,” Prompto said with a grin. The grin shifted into a nervous expression when he felt eyes staring at him. He looked over Pelna’s shoulder to a trio of people looking directly at both him and Pelna. He tapped Pelna’s shoulder and gestured to them.

“Uh, Pelna?” Prompto felt like he should be worrying, but the group didn’t look like they were going to cause them trouble, only seeming to look at the duo with curiosity. Pelna had actually laughed when his attention turned to the group, and some of Prompto’s uncertainty melted away.

“Those are my friends from the Glaives. Actually, we’re headed for dinner, do you want to join us?” Pelna said with a smile never leaving his face. Prompto was tempted by the offer, but he already had plans.

“I’d love to, Pelna, but I got to get these photos to Oma and then head home. The Argentums are home for once, and they want me to be there for dinner,” Prompto knew Pelna didn’t really like the Argentums, but Prompto was eternally grateful to them for getting him out of the orphanage. Prompto winced when Pelna frowned and let go of his shoulders.

“Alright, I’ll let you go. See you for dinner on Sunday though, right?” Prompto nodded at that. Oma had made Sunday night dinners mandatory for the whole family and Prompto never missed a single one. Pelna was immune though since he was so busy with his Glaive training, only managing to make it to the dinner once a month.

“Yup. I’m going to bring more of that cake Oma like. I’ll let you get back to your friends. See you later, Pel,” Pelna ruffled Prompto’s hair one more time, before the boy hugged him and made his way towards the block where their grandmother resided. He smiled at the retreating back and went back to his curious friends. It was Crowe that started to question him.

“Who was that?” Pelna started to walk in the direction of their favorite food stand before he answered.

“My little brother,” They made it to the stand, ordered their food, and sat down before another question was sent his way.

“Don’t get me wrong or anything, but he doesn’t really look like you or your family. How exactly is he-?” Libertus stopped mid-question when Pelna stared at him.

“It’s a little personal, but you guys are basically family now, I guess. When my village was attacked and we were making our way here, we found him on the side of the road. He was dirty and crying and looked like he had been through hell,” Pelna could still remember the little boy clinging to their grandmother’s skirts, flinching at any loud sound. But that little boy had performed a slight miracle that no one else in the family could do.

“My grandmother had stopped talking after the attack, we tried for weeks to get her to while we traveled, but nothing happened. But once we found this little boy, the impossible happened. She started talking again, and wouldn’t let us leave without him. So he was pretty much adopted into the family by her,” Pelna finished the story just as their food was served. The group seemed to accept the story, but Libertus had one more question.

“Wait, we’ve been to your house. How come we’ve never met him before now?” Pelna chewed his food before he gave an answer.

“Well, you said it yourself. He doesn’t look he’s part of my family. So when we got to Insomnia, he was separated from us and sent to an orphanage,” Pelna could see Crowe scowling in the corner of his eye. She hated the foster system in Insomnia, and if it hadn’t been for Libertus, she herself would have been put in an orphanage as well. Pelna decided to reassure her.

“He was only there for a year or so, before he got adopted. They’re good people and they mean well, but they’re not always there for him, always gone on business trips or so. He tries to come over as much as he can, but he’s pretty busy with school,” Pelna and his grandmother both agreed that their home was too far from Prompto’s home and school for him to try and visit every day. They reassured Prompto telling him that school was important for him. It was sort of the reason why their Oma began the Sunday dinner tradition to give Prompto some time to come and visit them. Pelna’s eyes widened when he was struck with an idea.

“Do you guys want to actually meet him?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still typing up the second chapter right now, and trying to figure out if I want to have a ship involved in the story. But, anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter.
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr: [chirithy](http://chirithy.tumblr.com/)


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